The Zipper. WOW!!!!

It has probably been over a decade since I have been on one but it is still one of the most intense and ridiculous rides I have ever been on along with being sketchy. Share your thoughts. Here is a recent POV of one.

Ah, the Trimper's Zipper. That's the only one I've actually been on. It's my favorite flat ride...though I have to be in the right frame of mind (and stomach) to ride it anymore...which is rare.

I had ridden one of these, it was my first and last ride ever on the Zipper. Didn't agree with me, at all.

This is the only ride that has ever made me barf. (I've come close a few times since.)

In 7th or 8th grade, I rode one of these at a carnival and it brought me right up to the limit, but I was able to hold it in. Being with friends, and not wanting to look like a wuss for sitting out, I agreed to ride the Paratrooper because it looked nice and calm. Right over the edge, "Sandlot" style.

This is one of my favorite flat rides, but due to the relatively light weight restriction and the fact that you have to ride with another person, I usually have to kid poach to ride. Most kids light enough to not come too close to the weight limit are small. Meaning they've never ridden because they just got tall enough recently.

I never thought a person could truly turn green until I got talked into taking a stranger's kid on the Zipper. Sure enough, kid turned green and was screaming for his mom the whole ride. He even started to dry heave. Yikes.

I've ridden Trimper's Zipper.

May not have been as good as the one at "old Coney Island" - but a pretty fabulous ride nonetheless, and far better than most of the travelling versions.

If you haven't seen it, check out the documentary about the demise of the Zipper at Coney Island - not a perfect film but one with a lot of fun moments and certainly plenty of good footage. My favorite bit is where the owner of Chance Rides explains that they designed the cages so coins would fall out of people's pockets onto the ground, making a little extra money for the ride operators.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/zipper-coney-island-wil...-1.1769085

rollergator said:

I've ridden Trimper's Zipper.

May not have been as good as the one at "old Coney Island" - but a pretty fabulous ride nonetheless, and far better than most of the travelling versions.

Not sure what the differences are between ride cycles on Trimper's vs. Coney's, but I've gotten some pretty stellar and insane flippage during some rides on Trimper's. Others less so. Part of the attraction is how unpredictable they are.

I used to spend my summers in OCMD, and my favorite Zipper memories are both from the Trimper's Zipper:

1) Six flips in a row. Almost 7, but no dice.
2) We plunged headfirst from the very top all the way to the bottom in this upside freefall kind of motion. It was a little painful because I was still super skinny and ended up sliding out from under the lapbar and pressing my head on the top of the cage, but man was it awesome anyway. My best friend and I just laughed and laughed after that.

This was my favourite flat ride as a kid but don't enjoy it so much now that I'm older. Not all Zippers are created equal, I've had rides with no full flips and some that had lots. An older travelling carnival ride op told me that the older the model is, the more it flips. Something about it being "broken in". No idea if that's valid.

Had a ride once where we were rocking it during load up and when it started up we hit it just right with almost endless flipping. Was fun at first and then felt the bile coming up in the back of my throat, the girl I was with announced she was getting ready to puke. Right about at the puke point the ride was over. The girl I was riding with had to get out first and she fell on the ground, I almost did the same. No one puked but had to sit on a bench for about a half an hour just to recover from it. By far the most disorienting and close to puking I've come to on a ride.

Suppose that's why yell at you sometimes for rocking it.

I have indeed noted that the older ones flip more. I did a little googling and discovered that due to safety concerns after the accident in 2006, Chance made new Zipper models with heavier cars, which decreased spinning and flipping, and it reduced pressure on the safety locking mechanisms.

I haven't been on a ride like this in a long time. It looks like fun, but I think I could only do it now if the ride time was cut in half. These kinds of rides just keep going and going. I suppose that might be because they often are pay-per-ride.

Love the Zipper, but my heart goes out to the old Chance Turbo. Is it odd that I'm saving money for a trip to Australia to ride the newly refurbished and only surviving operating model?

Call ahead...

CreditWh0re said:

Love the Zipper, but my heart goes out to the old Chance Turbo. Is it odd that I'm saving money for a trip to Australia to ride the newly refurbished and only surviving operating model?

Did you ever get to ride a Turbo? I've always been fascinated by them. A friend rode the one that was in Niagara Falls and said it was horrific!

Yes I did. Two years in a row at the local fair. I'm sensitive to motion sickness, but can ride Zippers and the Turbo with no problem. The Turbo was amazing. The ability to do a face plant from the top to the bottom of the rotation of the wheel with little to no ground clearance was just spectacular. The tubs provide very little range of vision, so you had no idea what was happening next (on your back staring at the sun at the top of the wheel, then a head first power dive). Sweet.

The ride that ran at Maple Leaf Village (Niagara Falls) was in total disrepair, and ran like crap.

All the footage I've seen of the Turbo make it look slow. I'm sure that's not the case, but I still can't see how a rider can go from staring at the sky from 50 feet up to going prone 3 feet off the ground within a half second like I've experienced on a Zipper. It seems the glaring difference between ride experiences is that the Turbo has lateral rotation.

motion's were different, but on a Turbo, the tub is naturally facing the sky, when at the bottom of the rotation it is angled toward the ground. Any rotation at the bottom (and on the descent) makes for a face plant. Love the Zipper, don't get me wrong, but Turbo had a different motion that I've never experienced on any other ride.

CreditWh0re said:

motion's were different, but on a Turbo, the tub is naturally facing the sky, when at the bottom of the rotation it is angled toward the ground. Any rotation at the bottom (and on the descent) makes for a face plant. Love the Zipper, don't get me wrong, but Turbo had a different motion that I've never experienced on any other ride.

Thanks for the Turbo info, that's really great. Wish there were more around!

I made the mistake of going on a carnival zipper a few years ago. and the car flipped the entire ride. But, that is the one thing that makes it so much better than any other carnival ride. No two rides are ever the same. I was on another zipper with my sister and all the car did was rock back and forth, and never inverted once.

I was on another at a county fair with friend, and that car just faced the ground most of the ride. That was the most terrifying ride I have had on a zipper so far. My friend rode with his hands in the air, and body slammed the door a few times during the ride. Nothing like wondering when the door is going to pop open and whip us into the ground. And, because the ride was full, and there was no line, we went extra long.

Another ride I enjoy is the xperience. I like a lot of flippy rides, but now that I am 50, I'm wondering if I will be able to tolerate them. I am always tempted to ride the Zipper at the county fair, but, I haven't been on one in a couple years.